Redesigning Poles Apart Design, I used the Datafeedr Random Ads V2 plugin as a random image rotator. The plugin requires that I add PHP code to a template page which I didn’t want to do because I wanted the image rotators to appear in specific posts. I could make that happen by installing and enabling another plugin that enables me to use PHP code within a post, but sometimes using PHP code within a post can cause unexpected issues, plugin or no. So, I thought, oh yeah, shortcodes. Shortcodes are pieces of simplified code that represent PHP code/functions without having to use actual PHP in the place you put the shortcode. Actually, you can use shortcodes for output of regular text, html and even CSS. A shortcode comes in this format [shortcode-post-title-here]. Here’s how to add a PHP function into a post from any plugin that requires a specific function call (which is almost all) to generate whatever content the plugin is for.
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Broken Link Checker is a great, great, great plugin because it saves you mucho, mucho, mucho time and headache keeping your site up to date with correct information, specifically, updated links. The plugin basically shows you a list of broken links under the Tools section of your WordPress dashboard. It shows you the post that the broken link was found in, the text it’s linked to, gives you the option of discarding the post, unlinking the text, and editing the post. But, the best, best, best part is that you can click “edit” to edit the link right there instead of having to fish for it within HTML code or in visual mode! Thank you Broken Link Checker!

Out of the many new additions to 2.8 from 2.7 my favorites so far have to do with accommodating my laziness. Or maybe just my impatience. The best thing about WordPress I’ve always found is that the dashboard, the admin area, is extremely user friendly, though of course not fool proof ’cause nothing’s fool proof, ’cause well, fools are foolish, aren’t they. Anyway, as user friendly as WordPress has always been, it hasn’t always been admin-friendly. Too many hidden features and sometimes not enough options in how to view the admin area without this plugin or that. With that said, I’m loving the many new admin area features that make my life as WordPress blogger, designer and developer that much easier when I’m blogging, setting up and/or explaining the admin area for a client and so forth. [Read more →]

I know, it’s been a while since I posted an article here at WordPress PAD. I have a good excuse, I’ve been hard at work developing websites using WordPress as a CMS (and blog). In the past few months I have learned a great deal about what WordPress can and cannot do…mostly what can be done to it with a little grease, time and patience.

With that said, working on a current project where I had to implement a bbpress forum with a current wordpress blog installation, I realized that bbPress, although a sister software of WordPress, is not the best solution for WordPress forum integration for two reasons. One, it’s quite buggy and two, it’s not a smooth integration. [Read more →]

So, let’s say you have a blog that publishes more than blog posts. Or rather, you use WordPress’s blog posts loop to publish glossaries, directories, or other lists that you don’t necessarily want published in your rss feed or exposed in your archives. Well, there’s a two-prong solution that takes just about 60 minutes of your time. First, installing the WordPress Advanced Category Excluder plugin and two, creating a JavaScript enhanced archives page that only exposes the posts and pages you want your users to see.
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Hi, welcome back to Our Love Affair with WordPress series. It’s been a while, I know. But, I’ve been busy working with some clients to make their WordPress blogs as fabulous as they can be! So, last time on Our Love Affair with WordPress, we talked about Enhancing Your WordPress Blog With Essentials. Now, let’s say you’ve got a pretty tricked out blog, that both emphasizes your topic without all the unnecessary spinning rims and shiny bling, but you got some seriously phat content, sweet design and sick SEO that doesn’t interfere with the user experience. Now, one reason I very much dislike excess in blog design, and excess in general is because having a lot of anything means there’s that much more to maintain and that much more to look a hot mess when not maintained on a regular basis. With that said, let’s talk about what blog maintenance essentials you should practice to maintain keep your blog hot, and prevent a hot mess.
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I like simplicity because of it’s elegance. Awkward moments and people, unnecessarily complicated tasks, and so forth are my pet peeves. With that said, when WordPress 2.6 came out and I noticed I couldn’t simply float left or right my images in my post, let’s just say I had a little “fit”. I love WordPress, but this is a silly bug that shouldn’t even exist. I could fix this by adding style="float:left;" to each image, but that could prove to be annoying after a while. So, here’s a simple solution. Add the default styles for the alignleft, alignright, etc. classes that WordPress assigns to your images when you click the left, right, center, etc. buttons anyway:
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Sorry I have been so bad with consistent posts lately. I’m working on a couple of WordPress projects that are diverting my attention and which I’ll share with you once they’re up (in beta). Anyway, on one of the current projects I installed the WordPress plugin, AJAXed WordPress, and implemented a trick to compress my CSS stylesheets to decrease load time.
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